Cory Kness

Dear CUSA W membership, 

It is with great pleasure, as your elected State Chairman, that I write to you today to express the tremendous progress that’s been made since last October’s annual board meeting.

Over the last six months we have been able to solidify strong relationships among the board members so decisions could begin to be made.  The CUSA board members have put in at least 6 (cusa board) meetings lasting over 6 hours each, in order to sort through the issues at hand.  Unanimous decisions have been made across the board thus far, now that’s progress!

One of the tangible results I have witnessed, is due to cohesion and newly found confidence the cusa board has in each other, and this has been a significant increase in membership from last year’s member athletes at 2565, to this year’s membership currently at 3645 wrestlers and climbing. 

Even if you’re not good at math you can see that in one year alone we’ve gained 1100 more participants and the state tournament has not even taken place yet.  We can expect a few hundred additional wrestlers joining us before our National Teams are solidified and the State Tournament happens. 

With that said, there are still challenges facing us, but we are certain to overcome them.  Regarding our upcoming national trips, there have been many questions regarding the cost per athlete.  As a parent and coach myself, I know the difficulty planning anything without having the information you need.  Rest assured that as a board we’ve been working diligently to make these trips as reasonable as possible for everyone, while also assuring that CUSA remains on firm financial ground. The consensus among our board members is that we desire to help reduce costs consistently via club membership dues, while maintaining financial stability for the overall organization. 

The reason it’s taken this long to know what the National Teams trips will cost is that the CUSA Board has been required to first fix the bylaws and arbitration findings for the betterment of wrestling in Colorado.  This has been a tremendous amount of work that has required extensive hours from our board members in order to achieve.  We are finally putting the final finishes away on this process, and collectively as a board, set the priority over the coming weeks as narrowing down the National Teams logistics, and prices.

We look forward to having you and your wrestler(s) participate with us, as we head off to states next door, as well as those in distant locations. 

In addition to this I want to ask every available wrestler in the state of Colorado to come down to Pueblo on May 27 and 28 to compete for a Freestyle or Greco-Roman State Championships!  I personally challenge each wrestler who can attend this event to become one of the state’s best!  It’s an honor to be a High School State Champion, but don’t count it any less to be considered Colorado’s Freestyle or Greco-Roman State Champ!

So, if you’re up for the challenge, show up. I look forward to shaking your hand while congratulating you as we put a medal around your neck and you stand on the winner’s podium! 

Let’s pack out the Massari Arena at CSU-Pueblo and see who will be representing Team Colorado as our elite or up and coming future hopeful!

See you on The Mat!

Cory Kness

CUSAW State Chairman